Article - Americans Abroad - Part Two

In the second part of a 7-part
series of articles (part one is available via this Link), I look at how American players fare abroad. This
research project was given to me by a Twitter follower – so if you would like
me to analyse/research something for you then please get in touch. There will
be a number of articles and resources added between now and the start of the
season in January.

I’m splitting this analysis into
a number of categories – US male players in the top 150 playing non-US/Canadian
main draw ATP events only (split into European and Asian/Australasian events),
South American players with any rank playing European Challengers (this
research area was specifically suggested) and US female players in the top 150
playing non-US/Canadian WTA events (split into European and Asian/Australasian
events).

For clarity, my policy on
retirements here was void them if the first set wasn’t completed, and I’m using
Pinnacle Sports starting prices for my analysis.

There are currently 16 US
players in the ATP top 100 with John Isner – ranked 16 – leading the
pack. Only him and Sam Querrey are currently ranked inside the top 75 in
the world.

There’s been a fair amount said
previously about a potential negative mindset with American players abroad so
this analysis will see whether that is indeed the case…

There hasn't been much to celebrate for Ryan Harrison in Asia so far in his career...

Clearly
we can see from the combined stats that US men have struggled badly in Asian
and Australian matches as well as the European matches, and actually even more
so with a combined ROI of -24.39% compared to the European matches ROI of
-17.60%.

There’s
certainly some shocking records in there, with Ryan Harrison’s 4-10 (-63.21%
ROI) record absolutely horrific.
Considering this information, perhaps it is much less of a surprise that
he lost – priced at 1.43 – on hard court in Tokyo against Horacio Zeballos last
week, who has a terrible record away from clay.

As
with the European matches, a blanket strategy of opposing US players in Asia
can definitely be considered and it would surprise me greatly if this situation
was reversed in the future – when you consider that the young US players –
Sock, Kudla, Kuznetsov, Williams, Smyczek and Klahn have shown almost zero
interest in playing in Asia, preferring to play US Challengers than Asian ATP
events where sometimes they’d have a high enough ranking to get in directly,
and definitely a high enough ranking to have a decent chance of getting through
qualifying.

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